The present invention relates in general to a method of charting data. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a method of charting data and determining an optimum range for display of the data.
Conventional methods of data charting typically include axis based charting of data points, where a data point is displayed in relation to one or two axes with associated scale values. A scale is associated with a chart axis in order to provide the mapping of data values to coordinates on a computer output device such as a display or printer. The simplest form of scale representation is a linear progression at a regular interval ranging from a minimum to a maximum value. This form is suitable for the charting of data points that are fairly evenly distributed across a scale range.
A refinement of the linear scale is the logarithmic scale, where interval values are progressively compressed on the scale as the magnitude gets higher. This is suitable for charting data where the majority of data points are clustered toward the lower end of the scale range, but some data points are significantly greater in magnitude. In this case, a simple linear scale compresses the majority of data points such that visually distinguishing between the points becomes difficult.
Where data point clustering occurs away from the extremities of the scale range, or where multiple distinct clusters appear, the above techniques do not offer a solution to the problem of displaying and examining in detail the clustered values. A few conventional solutions exclude the extremities of the scale range from the displayed scale range and expand the portion of the scale range pertaining to clustered data values. However, this technique loses the context of the clustered data within the overall data set, and does not address the situation where more than one clustered set of data points exist.